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Not quite. More that they CAN go through the haggling process if they want to, and that sometimes (not always) doing so can make a surprising difference down the road. I think we're closer on this than it seems.

Even if-when 'nothing happens' clearly makes the most in-fiction sense? Depends on the player. It still, however, puts the players into a position of having to work against their characters rather than for them, where I'd rather the players focus on advocating for and inhabiting their...

I don't see it as necessarily being poor design, though. When I design a dungeon-type adventure, unless I'm intentionally designing something more gonzo or "funhouse", I try to put myself in the shoes of whoever first built the place and think "What makes (or made, at the time) the most sense...

In isolation, they make perfect sense. When it happens every time a roll is failed, however, it quickly starts looking contrived; because it is. And yet the players in-character have a certain degree of choice as to just how "interesting" their lives are, don't they? They rarely if ever play...

And yet even then sometimes the module beat you. Could be because you missed something vital, could be because you got in over your heads and-or got unlucky on some rolls, could be because you brought the wrong team for the job, or whatever. Also, in past times when a party has missed...

Synthwave is great background music to play during the game sessions. :)

In the fiction, sure. In terms of rules-based action resolution, however, the 'why' is irrelevant. You could be climbing that cliff for any of a thousand different reasons but for the purpose of resolving whether you succeed or fail on the climb, none of them matter in the slightest. Same...

It's not so much an extreme need for immersion as it is a matter of preserving the sanctity and integrity of play that has already occurred. AW (I think it's AW?) has as a hardline core tenet "if you do it, you do it", which at face value I rather like. This is more like "once it's done, it's...

In-fiction logic. If the secret admirer is a common barmaid at the local tavern then she might not hear about the imprisonment until (if ever) the rest of the party return to town and tell their tale; and may very likely be unable to do anything about it in any case. If the secret admirer is a...

Ideally the DM has the attitude of whatever happens, happens. I've had fail-forward explained (and have seen this repeated even in this thread) that a fail can sometimes (not always!) be turned into what I read as a success-with-complication. For example, instead of failing to climb the wall...

Yes, and as such I will never do it. Retcons are to me the worst thing a DM can ever do, due to the consequent invalidation of play that has already happened which IMO should be sacrosanct, and as such I go to great - even extreme - lengths to ensure I never put myself in the position of having...

None. But if said secret admirer has no in-fiction way of knowing the PC is imprisoned then it becomes a rather moot point.

In my game world they've met a variety of faux-ancient/medieval human cultures plus a bunch that aren't human. And even in some real-world western cultures haggling was far more common in the past than it is today. You don't know that until-unless you try haggling the price. If for the sake...

Uh...er...before I jump in on this one you'll have to redefine what this is about, I'm afraid, as I've lost the topic somewhere. Well, yes it is; if the die roll says 'fail' and the DM decides it'll be something else instead then it's fiat all day long. It has fail in the name but not always...

If the rules or the players' action declarations or the dice or the situation dictate that these characters will die then I-as-DM feel I'm under no obligation to artificially keep them alive. The group of people meeting up on a regular basis are well aware of this and will IME continue to meet...

While we don't agonize over every second of the PCs' existence, if it comes to a question of playing a given situation out in more detail or less I'll tend to err on the side of "more" every time. In our euro-western culture it might be ridiculous, but in other cultures haggling is not only...

Can't speak to Conan but in Frodo's case it's because his captors were, collectively, idiots. Same is true of many a James Bond scenario - he gets captured but not killed, even though killing him makes the most sense in the fiction at the time; and that he isn't killed in those situations bugs...

The relevant feature for me is, to put it simply, character development. Wa-a-ay more of my characters' development comes through downtime and-or no-stakes events e.g. campfire chats or shopping trips than through high-stakes field adventuring, in large part because in high-stakes field...

Perhaps. Not necessarily. In a true sandbox, the players won't know any of this until-unless they have their characters make some in-fiction inquiries. And if they don't then they very much can wander into areas far above their pay grade, and get slaughtered for it. If you ask, sure. If you...

It's bending over backwards when a) the "something interesting" is clearly contrived just for that purpose and otherwise makes no in-fiction sense, and-or b) "interesting things" keep happening over and over again, far more often than random chance would dictate.